


An Associated Possibility of a Scott Pilgrim Situation

by hollypunkers (bealeciphers)



Category: Marvel (Comics), Venom (Comics), Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Action & Romance, Alien Cultural Differences, Angst, Comics/Movie Crossover, Fluff, Miscommunication, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Other Hosts - Freeform, Post-Venom (Movie 2018), Romance, Scott Pilgrim References, Sharing a Body
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-03 16:50:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16329890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bealeciphers/pseuds/hollypunkers
Summary: Eddie was unlike any host Venom had ever had before, he knew it the moment he'd joined with him, but Venom didn't know why it felt different. Uncharted. After all, hosts were supposed to be controlled and consumed and that's something Venom won't do... but they think they're getting it, becoming closer, being 'we'.And then Venom's past comes back to haunt them.





	1. Digress

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe I'm doing a long fic again. I love making mistakes to massively regret later.

Eddie was thinking about his president again. Eddie always tasted sour when he thought about the president.

 

Venom was tucked and coiled into Eddie’s lungs, some aspects of him existing as particles in Eddie’s skin, other little pieces, little hooks lodged in the back of Eddie’s skull, in his knees, by his hips. Venom was anchored as he’d never been anchored before; Eddie’s body was exceptionally welcoming.

 

Eddie picked up a piece of grapefruit, thought loudly,  _Fucking President, fucking grammar_ , and put the grapefruit in a plastic bag before setting it in his grocery cart without even a twinge of his facial muscles revealing the agony going on in his mind.

 

Venom had grown stronger, larger. He’d always been weak, barely able to consume a host, not sure if he’d wanted to. Under Eddie’s watch, under Eddie’s skin, he’d now grown large. He could afford to peel away pieces of himself, microscopic cells, fragments, tasters, small sensors throughout Eddie’s body. The longer they were together, the tighter Venom’s grasp on him.

 

A gentle spark of correlation connected a spelling mistake Eddie’s president had made to Eddie’s first article, printed in his middle school student newspaper, where Eddie had published an article on nutrition in pre-made student lunches that had been full of spelling errors and not even checked. A teacher had handed him back a copy of the newspaper inked with red pen to note the errors, along with a grade. ‘B-’

 

Eddie was embarrassed about that.

 

Embarrassment tasted like dread, roiling hot oil, blood, it was sticky and stuck in Venom’s mouth, hard to shake off. It was truly one of his least favorite emotions.

 

Venom surged up, connecting sparks to sparks to sparks along Eddie’s body, feeling for the hook in Eddie’s cerebral cortex, looking for context. It was so easy to search for information now that he was so thoroughly anchored in Eddie’s mind. The answer was confusing, children on this planet were placed in solid, concrete boxes and made to write, over and over and over, until Eddie got a callous on his fingers and learned that when his writing was good it made him feel good too. Sometimes the children went outside, were dressed in protective gear because humans are very fragile and weak, and they would run into each other and fight over a prolate spheroid ball. Eddie really liked that; he would shove everything deep inside, think about grades that weren’t _enough,_ work that wasn’t _enough,_ and how his dad didn’t love him _enough,_ and his mother didn’t live long _enough,_ and his sister wasn’t happy _enough,_ and Eddie wasn’t good _enough_ and he didn’t know if he would _ever_ be and Eddie took it, took every ounce of that pain, and would run headfirst into other children. Eddie really liked that.

 

 _‘Do you still like to hurt children?’_ Venom asked, curious.

 

Eddie’s temporal lobe lit up and he dropped one of the thirty organic potatoes he was stuffing into a bag. “What the fuck?” Eddie said.

 

He glanced around rapidly, worried someone had heard, but then breathed a sigh of relief when he saw they were all alone except for a few people grocery shopping with headphones on. Eddie was also wearing headphones, for the illusion, just not playing any music or podcasts. (Venom remembered Eddie scrolling through his phone, looking at the large list of unlistened to podcasts, curiosity in Eddie's mind that he no longer felt the need to listen to them.) “I don’t hit… kids,” Eddie said quietly.

 

 _‘No,’_ Venom grasped a hold on an image, Eddie’s hands in front of him, white, pale, a big uniform and padding on his chest, and a boy was running toward him, helmet on as well, both of them gritting their teeth and bracing for impact.

 

“Oh,” Eddie said. He picked up the organic potato, putting it with the others and placing it in his cart. “Vivid. That’s football.”

 

_‘I know what football is.’_

 

“Ok. Well, you’re supposed to hit other kids in football. I mean, as long as you are also a kid,” Eddie told him casually. He continued forward, opening his phone to refer back to the list he’d made on one of the seven applications on his phone he used for writing. _Phenylethylamine,_ Eddie’d wrote, _chickpeas, potatoes, peanuts, almonds, Italian pork salami, raw top sirloin - lean only, egg whites, goat’s milk._

 

_‘You liked it very much.’_

 

“Hell yeah, I was good at football.” Eddie’d also made a separate list, non-chemical specific, _chicken pot pies, frozen pizza, chicken wings, mozzarella sticks, ice cream, yogurt, peanut butter, bread, sandwich meat, jelly, butter, coke, beer_. The list confused and annoyed Venom, no rhyme or reason to any of it. “We were top in the state. I didn’t play in college though, wanted to, didn’t have time. Why are you thinking about football?”

 

_‘You thought about school.’_

 

“Hm,” Eddie looked through cans of chickpeas, mildly confused about what the difference was and what would be best. He ended up picking the one with a picture of a field on it. “I was kinda an ass in high school.”

 

Curious, Venom dug a bit deeper. He saw images of Eddie flirting with girls, only girls in a specific uniform, being around other boys with specific coats, ignoring other people with open disinterest.

 

_‘The girls in red skirts date the boys in red jackets, all other children are inferior.’_

 

“That’s not true. It’s just,” Eddie sighed as he pushed the cart around. Someone came up beside them and he touched the cord of his headphones, over-acting that he was talking on his phone. “Football jocks and cheerleaders, it’s just how it goes. It feels good to be part of a group, but we were assholes to other kids. This girl I was seeing, Rachel, and this nerdy kid, super-super into Dungeons and Dragons, I mean, obsessed, well, he started giving her his notes in the class they shared even though she didn’t want them, then he was giving her notes in all her classes even ones he wasn’t in, and he kept offering to walk her home from cheerleading practice even though she kept telling him she was riding home with her friend and me in Jake’s car-”

 

Venom searched for an image of Jake. Eddie’s first association of him was Jake dunking Eddie’s head in a pool and Eddie laughing at him. There were lots of people around; children being silly, being drunk. A party. Venom wondered if that was a thing Eddie used to go to often, he certainly didn't anymore.

 

Eddie casually continued down the aisle.

 

He passed the raw peanuts, but Venom saw them, grabbing them quickly with a tendril and dropping them into the cart.

 

“Thanks,” Eddie said, and he continued, “the guy, well, his name was Ivan, he could not leave Rachel alone so at lunch one day, he came up to the table to give Rachel this drawing of like, some weird character, and Rachel just had enough and in front of everybody she went, ‘Hey, Ed, this guy-”

 

_‘Ed?’_

 

“Oh fuck, yeah, Rachel thought calling me ‘Ed’ was sexier for some reason.”

 

_‘We do not like ‘Ed’.”_

 

“Yeah, I wasn’t into it. But she was like, my first and only girlfriend all of high school so I’d’ve let her call me ‘Shitface’ if she wanted.”

 

Eddie liked Rachel, but the memories were tainted. Hurt. Not as fresh as with Anne, but still troublesome. They prickled at his heartbeat.

 

“Anyway, she goes, ‘Ed, this guy is bothering me’, and I’m sitting there with Jake, Jackie, Zion, Sandra, Elliot, and fucking Chris-”

 

_‘Chris was the leader.’_

 

“Yeah, rich asshole who was also the quarterback. I mean, he was a good guy to his friends but the guy really just loved to stir shit up, and you didn’t want to be on his bad side.”

 

Eddie was in the frozen foods aisle now, taking much less notice or care which items he chose as he seemed to favor any foods that were convenient and dead.

 

“So of course I have to do something, everyone knows this dumbass has been chasing my girl and I didn’t do anything about it, but Rachel and I had been together since eighth grade, and I knew she wasn’t going to dump me for a guy sixty pounds overweight who ran the fucking chessclub. I wasn’t jealous. I also kind of thought Rachel and I were going to be together forever so… way too confident there in hindsight.”

 

Eddie paused, holding a meatlovers pizza in his hand, now seemingly entranced in telling the story, “And so this idiot, Ivan, I stand up and tell him to back off and that should have been his cue but instead he squares up and starts ranting about how he’s a good guy and Rachel can make her own decisions, like Rachel didn’t just ask me to tell him to leave, and that she deserves a guy who’ll make her happy, like I didn’t make her happy, and that I’m just some dumb brainless jock.”

 

_‘You have a brain.’_

 

“I know.”

 

_‘It’s delicious.’_

 

Eddie snorted. “Thanks. So now, of course, the girls are all laughing and the boys are pointing at me, so I just…” Eddie made a fist and banged it on the cart, then dropped the pizza in. “Yeah, I basically just beat the shit out of him in front of everybody. Coach was there, he didn’t do anything. He really should have stepped in.”

 

_‘Why? You were asserting your superiority over a weaker being.’_

 

“Ok. Don’t interpret it like… I absolutely went too far, he pissed me off so much and I have a lot of… I get mad way too easily, Anne says so. And I broke Ivan’s fucking nose, he had a black eye for weeks and afterwards, he was always just hunching over, never talking to anybody. The whole school made fun of him forever after that.” Eddie ran a hand through his hair, taking a deep breath. “Why the fuck did I tell you that story?”

 

_‘I liked it.’_

 

“You and the entire football team,” Eddie said with a roll of his eyes. “I mean, fuck, it wasn’t good. I did a huge paper last year about bullying in schools and the psychological damages like… shit.”

 

_‘You were stronger and you were challenged.’_

 

“Oh god, what am I teaching you?” Eddie shook his head. “Beating up people just ‘cause they’re rude is not cool. But ice cream is cool.” Eddie felt uncomfortable to Venom. The memory Eddie had brought up wasn’t a pleasant one, even though he’d shared it. Venom wasn’t sure how to fix it. The issue with human hosts was their flexibility, their variety, the way highs and lows in mood danced along the edge of the mind, changing at the slightest tip of the scales from one way to another.

 

But Venom did know Eddie was picking the wrong ice cream.

 

_‘No!’_

 

Eddie frowned, hand frozen on the tub. “I like mint.”

 

_‘No!’_

 

“It has chocolate chips.”

 

Venom grabbed for control of Eddie’s right hand, grasping and taking over it easily with no push back. That, the ease at which Eddie let Venom move his body, that was excellent. It made Venom shiver a bit in excitement at the perfect compatibility of their symbiosis, he shared the feeling with Eddie and Eddie seemed pleased too. He moved Eddie’s hand to the correct ice cream and let go.

 

“Extra-double chocolate fudge brownie, huh?” Eddie commented. He put the ice cream in the cart. “I told you I’d get you chocolate bars. And I got you tons of other food too.”

 

_‘And?’_

 

“Insatiable,” Eddie said fondly. The cart was done and he moved them out of the frozen aisle, past racks of clothing, knickknacks, books, infused water, and into the short line.

 

Venom didn’t like to wait, he let Eddie know, sending the feeling of impatience into Eddie's conscious thoughts.

 

Eddie, however, didn’t shove his cart in front of the others. He just leaned over the top of it, chuckling to himself. “Incorrigible, necessitous, poor, indigent symbiote. Hm. How’s that for a dumb jock?”

 

_‘You are not dumb. A loser, yes. Not dumb. I’ve met dumb.’_

 

“And I never have misspellings in my tweets,” Eddie said.

 

Oh no. He was going to start thinking about the president again, Venom had to stop it. _‘When did Rachel become Anne?’_ Venom asked quickly.

 

Eddie paused for a long moment at that. “Well… uh… we broke up in college. We went to different schools, she wanted to have fun and date other people so. And I’ve been with other people since, you know, I haven't only dated two people.”

 

_‘I know.’_

 

“I might be a loser, but I’m not ugly, and I’m on tv now so, that's a plus,” Eddie said. The line was moving very slow, Venom was annoyed but Eddie calmed him, _It’s late, there’s only two people working the register. We have nowhere to be, it’s okay._

 

_‘You are not ugly.’_

 

“Why, thank you dear,” Eddie said, voice tilting and exaggerating. He tapped his finger on the cart for a long while, watching the numbers tick by, glancing around at the magazines and flowers in the displays beside them while they were waiting. “What about you? Have you had any relationships?”

 

_‘I’ve bonded before.’_

 

“Any cool aliens? You know,” Eddie tapped his finger incessantly, “I mean, you’ve got this whole otherwordly life in your head-”

 

_‘Our head.’_

 

“I want to know about all of it. All the aliens. All the planets you’ve been do. Is Star Trek close to reality? I want to know all about it.”

 

_‘I don’t like space.’_

 

“Who doesn’t like space? Space is cool, like fuck, other planets? Other species? Driving around the galaxy in a ship with your best pals, getting into space-battles? Just add ‘space’ to any word, it makes it very cool,” Eddie encouraged, “c’mon, V, what could be better than that?”

 

The answer was so obvious, Venom couldn’t believe Eddie didn’t understand. _‘San Francisco,’_ he answered curtly.

 

Eddie’s fingers stopped tapping. “I… here?”

 

 _‘Here. Earth. With you. That is better,’_ Venom explained.

 

“I…” Eddie cleared his throat. “Can’t be, right? I mean, c’mon, Earth is boring, no need to pull punches.”

 

_‘Not bored with you.’_

 

Eddie turned his face, looking at the display, his heart was beating strangely, his fingers now twisting at the cloth of his shirt. He was feeling uncomfortable. “Yeah, of course. The aliens you bonded with though, they must have been, I mean, probably some cool guys. Like, twelve-foot tall Yeti woman or some badass dwarf Asguardian.”

 

Everyone Venom bonded with was an alien to him.

 

“I mean, c’mon, if Thor was walking around, banging his hammer about dressed in his underwear, saying ‘Hey, Venom, I want your sexy little body inside me’, you telling me you wouldn’t do it?”

 

Venom had passing knowledge of Thor, he could see the man’s image on a magazine by Eddie’s eyes, and he quickly sensed through Eddie’s memories and knowledge for clarity. _Wait._

 

Thor, the Asguardian who had defeated Knull's invasion force a thousand years ago.

 

 _‘No!’_ Venom recoiled instantly, making Eddie wince. _‘Never!’_

 

Eddie grinned. “Really? Me over Thor? You’re lying.”

 

_‘Never, never Thor. Definitely stay with Eddie.’_

 

“Well you… probably… just a flatterer. Don’t bite the host that feeds you.” Eddie had a spark of inspiration in his brain, and he reached out at some of the plants on display, touching them curiously. He seemed to like one of them and took it, admiring it for a moment. “You like this?” He asked.

 

Venom didn’t understand the change from the conversation. Eddie had changed the topic before because the subject had made him uncomfortable, and now, though Venom couldn’t truly read what Eddie was thinking, Eddie had changed it again. Was the topic of Venom bonding with others another bad line of thinking? Was it the symbiosis in general?

 

“Maybe…” Eddie put the flowers back and picked up a different arrangement. “What about these ones?”

 

_‘They are plants.’_

 

“Do you like them?”

 

Venom didn’t understand. They were plants. Strange, pink and yellow tulips, tight bulbs, already cut from the ground and unlikely to last even a week before wilting. _‘They are fine.’_

 

“Okay,” Eddie said. He put the plants in the cart.

 

_‘You are buying them?’_

 

“Yes.” Eddie pulled the cart forward to a register, nodding at a leaving customer and beginning to unpack his cart.

 

“Did you find everything you needed today?” The cashier asked in monotone, not stopping for an answer and she continued, “If you’re an Amazon Prime Visa member you can save on ten percent of select items and double rewards.”

 

Eddie gestured to his headphones and phone, miming that he was on a call and giving an apologetic smile. Venom noticed he rarely liked to talk to cashiers unless they were Mrs. Chen.

 

“I’m buying them for you.”

 

Venom was startled. _‘Plants for me?’_

 

“Yeah, they’re yours.”

 

_‘I do not eat flowers, Eddie.’_

 

“I know.”

 

_‘I don’t understand.’_

 

Eddie chuckled. “Well, look at that. For once I know something that you don’t.”

* * *

 

Venom felt a pang of curiosity every time he saw the flowers for the next five days. Eddie was not a home decorator, Venom had seen television shows, had seen Anne’s home, and their apartment was very minimalist, very bare. The walls had spackle over holes on them, the curtains were all different colors, there was a rug on the floor that had been given to him for free, suffice it to say the flowers did not seem to be an aesthetic choice. And they were Venom’s, which made no sense. Not Eddie’s. Not theirs.

 

Venom occasionally grazed them with a black tendril, softly touching the dying petals with curiosity as Eddie sat at the table.

 

After five days, Eddie picked up the flowers out of the vase along with the rest of the plastic trash and bottles around the place, and tossed them in the garbage.

 

 _‘Goodbye flowers,’_ Venom thought. Goodbye to the confusion.

 

“I…” Eddie froze, thinking. And then he marched down the stairs, to the nearest bodega, and bought new tulips.

 

Eddie put the fresh ones right in the vase where the others had been and had a feeling of intense satisfaction that sent Venom’s mind whirling.

* * *

 

Eddie tucked his hand under the desk, fiddling with his jeans. He pushed a finger hard against the thigh, then again, and again… and it was annoying. Venom had been resting, hibernating behind Eddie’s ribs, controlling his breathing, the memory of a crunchy lobster under Eddie’s fingers playing on repeat. Eddie poked again, and Venom grasped for the finger, covering it in his body, then around the rest, tendrils between fingers, circling the wrist, and held Eddie’s hand steady.

 

Eddie was surprised, and then held tighter, pushing into the grip.

 

Eddie seemed to find that an acceptable compromise, he returned to his work, investigating tax fraud and corrupt underhand dealings involving a third-party mayoral candidate, funneling mobster money through candidate donations. Venom found it boring.

 

“Hey Eddie,” the man at the desk in front of them said, “I didn’t tell you this earlier, but, you know, it’s nice to be working next to you again.”

 

Eddie looked up, jolted out of his thought processes. “Thanks,” he said with a friendly grin, “though I didn’t think I’d be back behind a desk so quickly.”

 

“Please,” the man, (Venom ran a quick spark through Eddie’s memory), _Paul Barnum_ , said, “you’ll be off filming the latest, way-too intense story in a day, I’m sure.”

 

“Well,” Eddie shrugged.

 

“Probably finding proof the mayor’s an alien,” Paul said with a hint of jealousy.

 

“Oh,” Eddie smirked, “not the _mayor_.”

 

“Heh,” Paul turned back to his work, scratching at his patchy goatee, “not every story is the Watergate scandal.”

 

“In a perfect world,” Eddie said vaguely. He didn't finish the thought and Paul didn't press it. They spent a moment typing in silence, Eddie filling out FOIA request form with practiced ease. “What’re you working on?”

 

“Increase in missing suspects for rape or murder charges,” Paul said with a sigh, “probably just a nonsense piece. If I was suspected of murder, I’d sure as hell go missing.”

 

Eddie’s stomach lurched. Venom’s growled. “Why’s it even a story?” Eddie asked, doing his best to seem inconspicuous. Venom thought he did great, though the twinge in their stomach indicated Eddie disagreed.

 

“Associates or a relative or two,” Paul continued, nonplussed, “certain they’re dead or something. But until a body washes up in the bay there’s really nothing to this. I’ll probably tell Barney to dump it on some eager intern once I finish outlining.”

 

 _‘They won’t find bodies._ ’

 

Eddie swallowed. “Yeah.” Eddie brushed his thumb against Venom’s form in his hand. “Crime pieces are always interesting though.”

 

“You can take it if you want.”

 

 _“No,”_ Eddie said, quickly enough to cause Paul’s eyes to come back on him. “Because... y'know... I’ve got my own stories. You can handle it.”

 

“I’d rather get back on the Life Foundation wrap-up,” Paul said, obviously aggravated, “but the whole governments got some big shut-down on that shit. Can’t even sneeze by those files without-” His gaze centered on something behind Eddie. “Ah, speak of the fucking devil.”

 

Venom felt something odd, a twinge in the deepest form of his mind.

 

“Barnum,” a man said behind Eddie.

 

Eddie turned, one hand on the back of his chair and the other, with Venom, tucked and hidden behind his thigh. Eddie saw a man, tall, broad shouldered, in a suit and tie, a badge. The man grinned and his teeth were perfect, which Eddie fixated on for some reason. The woman, Eddie noticed her big green eyes, unconventionally lopsided-blonde haircut, but otherwise he became tense, seeing her suit and badge as well.

 

Venom quickly sunk his body back under Eddie’s skin.

 

Eddie spoke a thought, and whenever he did that it was always too loud and unpleasant, too much purpose, too forceful. Venom didn’t like it. _Who,_ Eddie thought-screamed, _who ya think he fucked to get teeth like that?_

 

‘ _His parents provided him with excellent dental care and regular doctor visits,’_ Venom answered.

 

“Mr. Edward Brock,” Patricia said.

 

Eddie nodded, neck tensing as he struggled to talk silently to Venom. _I was joking,_ he yelled in their mind, _forget the teeth. And… how the fuck do you know that G-man’s name?_

 

_‘Your father did not provide you with regular doctor visits. Your teeth are slightly irregular.’_

 

“We’re here…” Patricia began to say.

 

“I _know_ ,” Eddie snapped at Venom.

 

She frowned at Eddie. “Obviously the San Francisco office has been in contact with you before about the Life Foundation incident, and they let you know there was going to be a follow up,” she said sternly. She gave the man a glance and put her arms behind her in a military position. “I am Agent Robertson, this is my associate, Agent Thompson.”

 

Eddie nodded. His throat was dry. Venom provided moisture, inciting the glands in his throat to help, but Eddie just ended up coughing. He put a fist to his mouth. “I… sorry. Yes.” Eddie stood up, knocking the chair back awkwardly and almost losing his balance. “There’s a…” he coughed, “a uh… a conference room. I’ll show you.”

 

“Thank you,” the male agent said.

 

‘ _His name is Eugene,’_ Venom provided helpfully.

  
He was not prepared for Eddie’s responding, silent scream, _How the fuck do you know that?!_

 


	2. Shrewd Footballers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Symbiotes like hosts, reporters like answers.

“As you can see,” Agent Robertson said, spreading the photographs and papers on the desk, “we are very up to date with the entire situation.”

The conference room was entirely empty, just a single window facing into the office that the male agent had pulled the curtain over and a large view of the city on the other side. It was mainly bare, just a large table, and the agents sat on one end.

“You don’t want to sit, Mr. Brock?” Agent Thompson asked.

Eddie swallowed. “No, of course. Right.” He pulled out a seat, doing his best to quell nervously shaking hands and sat down across from the agents.

_‘The window will be our escape. You can jump out.’_

Eddie tensed his neck as he thought-screamed back, _We are not jumping out another window!_

Venom was annoyed by that and shared his displeasure. As always, Eddie’s fear of heights was absolutely ridiculous; he’d never had a host so nervous about something that didn’t matter.

Agent Robertson lifted a paper in her hands and proceeded to read from it. “As has been established, the symbiote passed to you from inside the Life Foundation. It proceeded to control you and escape before you discovered the symbiosis was not compatible and it was killing you.” She pointed to a photo of the MRI Dan had taken.

_‘I wasn’t killing you.’_

Eddie cleared his throat. “Yes.” He put his hands on the table, clenched together.

Eddie found the gesture of holding or moving his fingers comforting, and Venom wished he could wrap his fingers around Eddie’s and keep him steady. But that wasn’t a good idea now.

_‘Not going back.’_ Venom told Eddie, who had a spark of confusion.

“The symbiote then jumped from unknown host to another to get back to the Life Foundation, that is correct?” Agent Robertson asked.

“I... yeah, but he’s dead. Y’know,” Eddie said, fingers clenching, “it’s gone. Both aliens. So why do we have to go through questioning again?”

Agent Thompson leaned forward, frowning.

Eddie glanced at him for a moment, looking at the sharp, probing eyes of the agent before quickly turning back to the one in charge. He seemed to find Robertson’s face more pleasant to look at.

_‘Don’t be afraid of Eugene,’_ Venom told him, _‘he’s useless and dumb.’_

Eddie’s eye twitched.

“The alien found you at the Life Foundation, where you’d been taken hostage. All security cameras confirm. You also met a second symbiote, one possessing Dr. Carlton Drake, that you said was called...” she paused.

“Riot,” Eddie filled in.

“Then you were taken out of the building, and you claim you were going to be killed by the security team,” she continued.

“I was going to be killed by the security team,” Eddie insisted.

“That wasn’t in the lawsuit,” Robertson pointed out with a raised eyebrow.

“We pleaded down and only stuck on the things we could prove,” Eddie told her, “it was important to get our case through and establish precidence before the state’s case against the company.”

Thompson clicked his teeth and Eddie’s eyes snapped to him. “There’s the ‘we’ again,” he noticed.

Eddie’s internal organs squeezed, which Venom found intensely annoying, but Eddie was quick to answer back, “Me and Anne Weying. My lawyer.”

“I do see you donated 95% off the profits from your personal winnings to homeless charities in the area,” Robertson pointed out. “And the final eighteen-thousand?”

“I went to fucking _Disney_ World. What I do with my money’s not the government’s business.”

“Okay,” Thompson waved a hand, gesturing to nothing, “can I get a word in here? I’m the expert.”

Robertson frowned at him, but she leaned back.

Oh no, Flash was confident. Too confident. Venom didn’t like it when Flash got cocky.

“According to the scans we’ve received and the testimony of Dr. Dan Lewis and Anne Weying, Esquire, the symbiote was entirely incompatible with you,” Agent Thompson had a twitch of a smile when he said this. Eddie caught on to it, reeling in confusion.

_Who,_ Eddie thought loud to Venom, _fucking is this guy?_

_‘Sh,’_ Venom said in response. Which was perfectly acceptable advice, but it just seemed to make Eddie angry.

“If you were so incompatible, why did the symbiote rebond with you outside the facility? You were already dying, you were weak, and he was killing you. He wouldn’t bond with a host just to hurt them,” Thompson pointed out.

Eddie was quiet. On the outside.

Venom could see his brain firing off, connections hitting rapidly, half-thoughts meeting quarter-thoughts, bridging on one another even as cohesiveness was forming. Eddie was quick, smart.

Venom sunk low, down beside Eddie’s right hipbone, as small as he could make himself. It was hard not to be riveted, focused as much as he could on looking out at the scene through Eddie’s eyes... but Flash’s gaze was making him uncomfortable. Flash’s knowledge of him. As if the man was going to be able to see right through Eddie’s skin to the symbiote behind.

“I don’t understand why you think you’d know what the symbiote would and wouldn’t do,” Eddie answered cooly, “it’s an alien parasite-“

Venom twitched and poked roughly at Eddie’s stomach.

Eddie didn’t even twitch, he must have anticipated Venom’s response to the word, probably used it on purpose. “Why,” Eddie continued, “why would any of us know anything about what it would and wouldn’t do? It liked the taste of my heart, maybe. Maybe it just wanted to see it through. But we can all see from the security footage of the launch exactly what happened.”

“It was well documented,” Agent Thompson said sourly.

“Riot took over Carlton Drake. Venom took over me. They fought. I got fucking stabbed through the goddamn chest by a yard-long fucking sword-”

Venom didn’t like that memory. It made him sad and Eddie’s nerve endings jump into overactivity. Venom sent sparks up to Eddie’s brain, finding a hook, finding a memory and... he sent the muscle memory of a warm, hot shower, cascading down from the back of Eddie’s head, along his neck, soothing and wrapping like a blanket. Eddie’s muscles relaxed.

The bite was slightly out of Eddie’s voice as he continued, “And Venom destroyed the rocket, but we fell through the fire from the launch. The pain caused us to seperate.”

“The symbiote healed your injuries,” Robertson added, “that must have been confusing to get a jury to wrap their heads around.”

“You can read the court transcripts if you’re curious, but don’t ask me how. Anne’s the lawyer.”

“The symbiote’s been inside you,” Thompson said, leaning forward, “you have to understand. He is not a mindless beast. He’s a living, conscious thing-”

_Thing?_ Eddie noticed, a twinge of hot anger in his mind.

Venom made the soothing shower-memory wash over Eddie again.

“He has reasons for what he does,” Thompson continued, “but he is also not self-sacrificial. Survival is the symbiote’s number one driving force, about anything else. That’s why they were all eating their hosts at the Life Foundation, they weren’t getting the chemicals or food mass they needed to live and were forced to cannibalize. So...”

Thompson’s hand hesitated a moment before reaching into another manila folder. He pulled out photographs, all of them blurry, close ups and screenshots of the security footage. It showed, in minute detail, their fall from the plane.

Venom shuddered.

They let go of the rocket. They were falling down. Eddie was scared, Venom wrapped himself even tighter around him. Then the fire came. Engulfing. Powerful. Venom wanted to let go, like he had when Eddie had gone through fire during the bike chase, he wanted to retreat in the body and have the host take the damage, but it would kill Eddie.

So he held tight. He stayed surrounded. He kept Eddie close, because he wanted to.

Then everything hurt so much, and the bond was hardly anchored, and Venom felt... dead. So he lost hold and they fell apart.

“Are you alright, Mr. Brock?” Robertson asked.

“What?” Eddie’s voice came out as a squeak. “I,” he cleared his throat. “Fine.” He reached his hands up to his face, searching for tears that hadn’t dropped yet, but his eyes were heavy.

_‘Sorry,’_ Venom said.

“I don’t know if you know this,” Thompson said, “but symbiotes do not survive in fire. He should have retreated the second you began to fall.”

Eddie swallowed hard. “Uh...” he tapped his knuckles on the tables. “I’m scared of heights. He could have... I don’t know.”

Thompson’s face seemed to grow pale. “So you overpowered him.”

Eddie blinked. “That’s... possible?”

“Yes,” Robertson said. “Some human hosts have been able to overpower and control the symbiote, though it’s very rare and normally just temporary. Your heightened adrenaline from the fall must have forced the symbiote to stay shielding you, even though it killed him.”

“Uh... that can’t be... true,” Eddie said. He scrunched his face, confused.

Thompson stood, kicking the chair he was sitting on to the floor. The bang made Eddie jump. He was towering over them, hands clammed down on the wood table, his mouth in a hard line, eyes narrowed and furious.

Robertson jumped to her feet and put her hand on Thompson’s shoulder. “Calm down.”

Thompson ripped her hand away. “Don’t you fucking tell me...”

“Calm down, soldier,” Robertson said through gritted teeth.

Eddie was staring. Shocked. Realization starting to hit, Venom noticed with dread.

Thompson’s eyebrows were clenched tightly together, his broad chest heaving, and his expression was borderline manic. “You _fucking_ piece of,” Thompson slammed a palm down on the table, _“shit!_ You _killed_ him.”

Robertson grabbed Thompson’s collar, yanking him back and facing her. She raised a finger to his face. “We haven’t found the body yet, so calm the fuck down.”

“Isn’t...” Eddie pressed, voice quiet, “isn’t getting rid of all the parasitic-”

Venom twitched beside Eddie’s stomach but refrained from hitting him again.

“-aliens trying to invade the planet a good thing? Why do you care?”

“That’s confiden...” Agent Robertson began to say, before Thompson stepped forward, moving quickly if not ungainly and jolted, and grabbed Eddie’s shirt with two hands, lifting him to a standing position.

“He was my _friend,”_ Thompson spat, “you fucking piece of shit-”

Eddie was sending signals, loud thoughts, in their brain telling Venom to stay, _stay-down,_ as if Venom was an idiot. There was also a strong part of Eddie’s mind that was pissed, he wanted to hit Thompson back, move him around- Eddie wasn’t a pushover, he was in good shape, but assaulting a government agent was a bad move. No matter who started it.

“Thompson. Don’t forget that guy has a rockstar lawyer,” Robertson warned.

“I do have a lawyer,” Eddie said, reaching up to Thompson’s wrists to pull them back, “and courtesy’s over. I’m done talking to anyone else without her present.”

“You _killed_ Venom,” Thompson said, jaw tight and absolute loathing in his eyes. He let go though, stepping backward on strangely shaky legs. “You, fuck you,” Thompson continued quietly, “you better watch your back. ‘Cause I know a thing or two about avenging, and you, _fucking,_ killed Venom.”

Eddie frowned and looked at Robertson. “I’m being threatened now.”

Robertson seemed furious. “Apologies,” she said to Eddie, but her tense body language and eyes were focused on Thompson, “Agent Thompson is an expert on the symbiote but does not normally do this sort of work. If we have any follow ups with you, I assure you we will make an appointment through your lawyer and Agent Thompson will not be joining us.”

Eddie crossed his arms. “Okay,” he said.

Robertson gestured to the table and Thompson began to gather up papers.

“Wait,” Eddie’s brain lit up with inspiration and his heartbeat quickened, “what do you mean- expert?” Neither agent answered and Eddie continued. “You were-” he pointed to Thompson, “he was... in you. You bonded with him.”

Thompson met his eyes with a glare.

“He...” Eddie’s eyes widened. “He bonded with other people? How? He was trapped in the Life Foundation...”

“We cannot release that information,” Robertson said. She took a folder from Thompson. “Thank you for speaking with us, I’ll be seeing you again shortly.”

Eddie stayed standing, uncrossing his hand and now tapping his fingers against his thigh, watching Thompson move, studying him. Thompson walked by them, hitting Eddie’s shoulder with his own with a sneer on his face.

_‘Trip him,’_ Venom advised as Thompson moved past, _‘he’s missing his feet. It’ll be easy.’_

Eddie took a deep, long breath as Thompson stepped out of the conference room.

He raised shaking fingers to his face, pinching the bridge of his nose.

The deep breaths calmed his racing heart and Venom helped, stream-lining the oxygenation process, helping Eddie breath in deeper and deeper like he did when Eddie meditated. Eddie glanced around the room, brain firing off memories of the conversation, his chest clenching and unclenching alternatively with worry and then curiosity. He had questions. He was angry.

Venom slipped out of the skin on Eddie’s left palm, reaching for his hand.

Eddie shook his arm, dispelling Venom’s touch, and walked out the door quickly. He grabbed his jacket from his desk, put it on as he walked strict, purposeful steps out of the office. “I need a fucking drink,” Eddie growled under his breath, “and you’re not gunna raise a fucking stink about it this time, got it?”

_Oh._ Eddie was mad at him.

* * *

 

Venom sunk himself deep and small against the corner of Eddie’s spine, coiling around it gently and holding tight, his body spread out and phased, pieces and pieces of black inside the lovely, soft blues, grays, and pinks of Eddie’s inside. He could feel, despite being locked away, cutting off everything but the deepest hooks in Eddie’s mind, that 'they' were not good.

So as Eddie drove his motorcycle, Venom stayed tucked away. He didn’t urge Eddie faster or tell him to jump over railings, the suggestions he gave that Eddie rarely listened to, or even manifest his physical head and let the air buffet about him, making his body ripple and his tongue dry and wild. They normally both liked that.

Venom wasn’t sure what was wrong, but he could sense Eddie’s anger, fear, and the roiling discomfort causing acid build up in his stomach. He didn’t send the comforting memory of the hot shower either, Eddie was enjoying the cold, speeding San Francisco air rippling his clothing. As well as Eddie could enjoy anything in this state.

They pulled up to the bar Eddie liked to go to. They went inside. Eddie walked all the way to the farthest corner of the counter, sitting up on a stool that squeaked and had one uneven leg.

There was a regular on the far end talking with another man, both had long beards and were heavyset, the one Eddie knew gave him a nod and Eddie nodded back. A couple other men were playing pool behind them, but otherwise the place was empty. Low lit, everything slightly orange, dirty and depressing.

Jack, Eddie’s bartender, who Venom didn’t like because he provided the alcohol that Venom was not a fan of, walked over and opened a beer without saying anything. He put it down on the counter with a napkin under it, and nodded with a sympathetic look in his eye. “E.T. again?”

Venom seethed.

“Yes,” Eddie said sternly. He picked up the beer, staring ahead at nothing as he took a drink.

Eddie’d convinced Venom to let him get very, very drunk one night, culminating in Eddie giving a very long chat to the bartender, Jack, all about Venom who lived inside him. Jack had ignored it all, until a week later two fighting bikers had clocked the bartender in the face as he attempted to stop the fight, and Venom had surged forward, enveloping Eddie, and they’d knocked the men out and kicked them into the alley dumpster to sleep it off.

“Have fun, wouldn’t wanna be ya,” Jack mused. He stepped away, making himself scarce.

Eddie took a long drink.

He put his right hand out, palm up, but Venom didn’t emerge.

“Okay,” Eddie said, forehead wrinkling. “Okay. We need to have a conversation.”

_‘We are always having a conversation.’_

“I don’t mean you, conversing with my liver or my spine, or whatever you like to do in there, I mean you and me. Don’t pretend you don’t understand.”

_‘Fine.’_

Eddie let his eyes slide over the various bottles and glasses across from him, frowning. “Who the fuck were those guys? Robertson. Thompson. They work for the F.B.I.?”

_‘No. They’re part of a highly classified sect of the U.S. army that works closely with S.H.I.E.L.D. intelligence.’_

“Fuck.” Eddie waited for Venom to say something else, and when the answer wasn’t forthcoming he seemed annoyed. “How do they know you?”

_‘We know each other.’_

_“How,_ V?!”

_‘I was bonded previously with them.’_

“With Thompson?”

_‘Mostly with Thompson. Yes.’_

Eddie’s gripped the beer with both his hands. “With both of them? How? When?”

_‘A year ago. Flash Eugene Thompson bonded with me for short periods of time to be an advanced supersoldier at the army’s orders, Patricia Robertson was a communications specialist I bonded with and used to escape.’_

Eddie tapped the top of the beer bottle. His heartbeat slowed slighty. “Were they hurting you?”

_‘No.’_

“Why’d you go?”

_‘Flash never let me stay bonded to him long enough to be anchored to him,’_ Venom said. He reached upward, moving through Eddie’s body, avoiding his stomach and esophagus where the bitter tasting liquid would be, and moving back to rest in Eddie’s lungs, feeling and controlling their breath. _‘And he let Spider-Man cut off a piece of me for research and I was angry.’_

Eddie frowned. “I would never...”

_‘I know.’_

Eddie sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Okay.” He swallowed. “Okay. Spider-Man is... big time. The Army’s big time. That’s not good, but they think you’re dead.”

_‘They may connect the missing human traffickers we’ve been hunting to us.’_

“Shit.”

_‘But they were bad people.’_

“Very bad. Yes.” Eddie frowned. “Do you think... this Thompson, or Flash or Eugene, whatever, think he’s really going to come after us?”

_‘I don’t think so.’_

“It seemed...” he caught himself on the word, bit his lip, and stayed quiet for a long moment. “He seemed like he liked you.”

_‘HE PISSED ME OFF!’_

Eddie flinched, his temporal lobe agitated and stomach dropping. “Right. Right, right-e-o. But just ‘cause you’re angry at him doesn’t mean he doesn’t miss you enough to want to try something.”

_‘I am angry,’_ Venom explained.

“Doesn’t mean he didn’t care... or enjoy being with you. You aren’t a ‘we’ anymore, you two don’t have the same emotions,” Eddie explained, “even we don’t always have the same emotions.”

Venom pondered that. _‘I am angry, he is... sad.’_

“A grieving man with a gun is very, very dangerous. You were bonded together, then you left, got messed by the Life Foundation, and apparently killed by me. I’d be absolutely fucking bonkers if that happened. Probably blow up the whole coast,” Eddie said causally.

Venom felt... contentment rush through him, soft and pleased.

“We have to be careful, might have to put vigilantism on hold,” Eddie told him.

_‘But we can still eat the bad people.’_

“No, we can’t. That’s what ‘vigilantism on hold’ means.”

_‘No!’_

“You can live on the food I’ve given you. We need to lay low until the spooks are out of the city,” Eddie said.

_‘Boring.’_

“I’ll keep you entertained. Promise. I’m... I’m here with you, we’re together,” Eddie reminded, “so don’t you, don’t you go running off on me either. Alright? That’s how you ended up in the Life Foundation, isn’t it?”

_‘More or less.’_

Eddie pinched the bridge of his nose. “Don’t be cryptic, love.”

Venom paused, confused. ‘Love’ was new. Different from other things Eddie called him, meant something else, he could tell, but Eddie’s mind was a jumble of sparks of concern, thinking of escape plans and dinner menu’s, impossible for Venom to search through without causing Eddie distress. Still, whatever Eddie meant by it, Venom liked it.

“If the spaceship crashed nine months ago now,” Eddie said, “how were you on earth earlier?”

_‘I wasn’t on the spaceship. I was in New York.’_

“How’d Carlton Drake get you?”

_‘Purchased me.’_

Eddie’s eyes widened. “ _Fuck_ ing hell. You were... someone put you on the fucking black market? _Jesus..._ I...” His face and stomach clenched tight, and Venom moved his air, made him breathe and relax. “‘Kay. ‘Kay. That’s fucked up that’s... alright. So... you land on Earth first. The army gets you. You escape. Then you end up with...”

_‘Bad man.’_

“‘Bad man’. Are you Eleven now?” Eddie joked sourly.

_‘I like Stranger Things. Let’s go home and watch it.’_

“In a bit I... I promise. We go home, I’ll spoil the shit out of you.”

‘Spoil’. Venom didn’t understand that word in the context. Food that was spoiled was bad.

“Who was the bad man?”

_‘Asshole.’_

“Cryptic again. Straight answers, c’mon.”

_‘Irrelevant.’_

“Not irrelevant. It is _not_ irrelevant. Jeez, V,” Eddie took a drink, “for someone so fucking good at listening you’re a terrible interviewee. After the bad man. Who’d you bond with?”

_‘Weak fool.’_

Eddie held his breath for three seconds and then let it out. Slowly. “Fucking hell. Fine. Who put you up on the black market?”

_‘The father.’_

“The father of?”

_‘Weak fool.’_

“How’d he contain you?”

_‘The bad shit-face told the father how to do it.’_

“Okay. So, how long were you at the Life Foundation?”

_‘One month. It’s why I wasn’t crazy or starving like the others.’_

“They were crazy?”

_‘They’d grown feral. They had inadequate nutrition, they were being forced to consume their own hosts to live, too weak to communicate or escape. And the hosts were bad.’_

“Maria wasn’t bad.”

_‘Not bad. Not like the people we eat. Their brains were bad. Bodies weak. A weak host makes us weaker, imprints weakness into our bodies. A taint, hard to remove. Each host leaves a trace.’_

Eddie sat in silence for a long time after that, his mind very active, his body sluggish as he slowly nursed the beer and consumed the information. “And me?” Eddie asked quietly. “How do I measure up as a host?”

_‘I like you. I want to stay.’_

Eddie smiled, though he covered it up with his fingers. “I want you to stay too. So... will you trust me? Lie low with me, help keep us off the radar of the government, keep you dead?”

_‘If we have to,’_ Venom said bitterly.

“Let’s go home.”

* * *

 

Eddie wasn’t thinking about the movie, which was strange, because Venom found it engrossing. The four, weak humans, trapped in a prison they’d locked themselves in to, finding far more then they were bargained for as the terrifying, black hooded demon chomped them up one... by... one.

The leader, a small, human female who the camera focused on exclusively, turned a shaking flashlight down an empty, glooming hallway and gasped as a shining, red apple gently rolled into view. She screamed, and the man beside her screamed, and they began running again.

_‘Funny,’_ Venom thought, he twisted his form, moving ever so slightly farther out of his place on Eddie’s chest, turning his head ever so slightly. It was nice to look at Eddie sometimes, see the outside of the man instead of the inside. He continued, out loud, “It’s just an apple, Eddie. They’re scared of fruit.”

“Mhmm,” Eddie answered.

He was lying on the couch, feet up on one end, with his face pressed into a pillow on the other, one hand raised up and resting behind his head and the other pressed against Venom’s form, closing and opening absentmindedly, knuckles brushing Venom’s chin. His eyes were on the screen sometimes but often flickered back to Venom’s form and stayed there.

The two humans on the screen continued running but the man, obviously inferior despite his bulky form, tripped and fell. The woman turned, gasping in horror, as the shadows behind them grew deeper and two red eyes glowed from the silence. The man urged the woman to leave without him but she did not; she was very good.

“I do not want her to die,” Venom told Eddie, “but he can.”

Eddie lifted his arm, stretching it, and asked sleepily, “Why’s that?”

“He is bad.”

“S’not that bad.”

“He slept with her younger sister. It was a violation of trust and friendship,” Venom told him, feeling a little proud of himself, “he is a betrayer.”

“Is he now?”

“I can understand. From context.”

“I wasn’t doubting you,” Eddie said. He reached forward, for the bag of popcorn, and Venom surged to grab it, putting the bag within Eddie’s reach so he could continue to eat. “Sometimes, ya gotta betray some people. If they’re bad.“

“She is not. That is why she will live.”

Eddie winced slightly as the man on the screen was impaled by the black, praying-mantis-like monster. “I certainly hope so.” He was absent in the moment, but Venom could feel his mind. Feel the thinking.

Venom watched the girl, now the last of her party, as she ran into the chapel from the start of the film. She had a plan now, though it wasn’t evident.

“Almost Halloween,” Eddie said casually.

“Yes,” Venom turned his face to Eddie, _“Halloween.”_

Eddie felt curious. “You’re excited?”

“Candy, Eddie,” Venom told him, “you will buy me _more_ candy than I can eat.”

Eddie raised an eyebrow. “I will, will I?”

Venom licked his lips. “Those with frightening faces are given candy. My face is most frightening, and you will reward me.”

“You’re not so scary,” Eddie told him. He brushed a finger along Venom’s scalp. “S’kinda pretty. You know.”

“You must appease the holiday, Eddie. You _must_ buy candy.”

“Like,” Eddie yawned, and his fingers kept moving along Venom’s face, down his forehead, across his eyes, brushing over his teeth, “your eyes are opals. Like a rainbow, y’know, and all your... skin I guess, it’s black but reflective, it catches the light, its always moving, breathing, glowing. It’s... s’ real pretty, love.”

Eddie felt good. His brain was hot, delicious, it was full of chemicals that turned Venom’s form hot, that lit up Eddie’s every skin like it was coursing hot. Eddie’s hairs on end, his nerves tingling, and the body was suddenly so... so comfortable.

Venom dropped his head to Eddie’s chest, barely in control of his own form as he suddenly tasted  _sweet._ He closed his eyes, and Eddie’s hand on his head stroked him gently.

_‘Good, Eddie,’_ Venom told him.

“Yeah,” Eddie said, and Venom could feel his host’s body drifting into sleep, “no one’s gunna take you away.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, if you take comic canon and only bastardize it a little you can fit anything into anything. 
> 
> ...
> 
> Your local bartender knows all your town's secrets.


	3. Sleep

_ Clingy _ , that was a word Anne had often used to describe Eddie. Eddie liked words, most of them, but not that one.  _ Needy _ .  _ Obsessive. Wanting.  _ He preferred  _ sweet  _ or  _ romantic _ , but Eddie had accepted  _ suffocating,  _ especially to describe how he slept. 

 

Romantic partners had often asked him to sleep in another bed, or on the floor, or head to toe, given Eddie’s need to grab something and hold it tightly in his sleep. Anne hadn’t minded, she liked to be warm at night, and that was the single, strongest reason Eddie’d had for believing they’d be together, forever. 

 

When they’d broken up, Eddie’d returned to pillows, hating them for being too soft, just not right. They’d sink into him instead of letting him grab, letting him hold too tight, nothing really there and it showed. 

 

Venom, Eddie often thought, was  _ perfect  _ to sleep with. 

 

Venom liked Eddie’s hands when they sunk into him, he’d wrap his body around them too, holding them tight. Eddie’s right arm would pillow his head, coming back for a deep stronghold, and his left would wrap around their forms, keeping them close. Venom’s face sunk under Eddie’s chin, the rest of Venom haphazard webs, over Eddie’s back, thighs, feet, wrapped around and then bound tight. Comfortable.  _ Molded _ was Eddie’s word for it. 

 

Eddie was very into human words, taking larger things with very broad meanings and putting them into smaller context, he said it meant more, implicated more. Like calling a rainy day  _ melancholly  _ or a very delicious wild sea lion an  _ alien oblation.  _ Eddie’d been proud of the last one, though Venom couldn’t understand it at all. 

 

Venom shifted part of his form so it was onto Eddie’s face, pressing against the scratchy surface of Eddie’s upper lip. Eddie used small words to describe his face, like  _ mug _ . Venom found that insufficient, but then again Eddie kept using a small word to describe  _ Venom _ .

 

Love. 

 

Venom had very thoroughly perused Eddie’s mind during the night, nagging and probing, shooting random sparks, sending Eddie into a truly incoherent dream of fleeting glances and printed words, and he came up with only a few things. Venom saw a man, shorter than Eddie now but broad shouldered, standing over the grave of a woman, and the context was  _ love too much, nothing left _ . He also saw many people, moving in and out of Eddie’s life, staying never long enough for Eddie’s satisfaction. Eddie and another man saying “Love hard, play hard” and proceeding to drink so much alcohol they were sick. Tacky tattoos. Bad movies. There was also a lot of Anne, Eddie looking at her, feeling warm and happy and longing, and there was the proposal. The proposal was a big deal, it was a memory seared into Eddie’s memory like a hot iron brand, but there was no way in Eddie’s mind to separate the happy, loving memory of the proposal to the moment when Anne gave the ring back, they played together simultaneously, overlapping each other, each time the emotion accompanying was so strong Eddie’s face would twitch in his sleep. 

 

Venom didn’t have an answer, and he stepped away, soothing out Eddie’s mind as he left. He found calm, easy memories, young children in a town playing a game with a large stick, an apple to hit instead of a ball, and running in circles, and he put sparks all over it, activating it, letting Eddie’s sleeping mind catch onto the memory of a childhood afternoon. Eddie’s body relaxed, his face grew soft, and his mouth opened partially, drool slightly building up in the corner, which was how Venom knew he was sleeping well.

 

It was easy for Venom to slide into Eddie’s mind and look for answers, to learn everything about Eddie, where he’d been, who he’d met, what he’d done. Even if Eddie’s thoughts often surprised him, or the way Eddie played with words left Venom confused, Venom could still read Eddie’s mind. Eddie could not read  _ his  _ but Venom knew Eddie wanted to stay with him, forever.

 

Eddie began to wake up, soft sunlight was teasing up along their bed and had finally reached Eddie’s eyes, stirring him. His waking mind conjured thoughts of apples, apple pies, apple ciders, and apple donuts.

 

_ ‘Gross _ ,’ Venom told him.

 

Eddie smiled, still more than half asleep, but even in that state his brain shifted just a little, to show a hayride, a corn maze, hot chocolate -  _ ‘Good’ _ \- and fresh, squawking chickens - _ ‘Yes. Go. Now.’ _ . But Eddie’s sleeping brain didn’t conjure up an address. 

 

Eddie shifted slightly, and yawned, and his left hand moved out of a segment of amorphous black body and up to Venom’s head, pushing Venom even tighter under his chin as he sighed. Still sleeping, just cognizant enough. None of Eddie’s body had woken yet, his heartbeat was still slow, his organs still running on an easy, downtempo schedule. 

 

Eddie thought about Flash Thompson. He thought about Flash’s shoulders, thick jaw, blond hair, the military stance and confidence.  _ Missing feet,  _ not understanding Venom’s meaning. The teeth that stood up in rows, easy and clean. He thought about Flash’s hands grabbing onto his shirt, yanking him up. 

 

Eddie thought about biting Flash’s head off. 

 

Odd. It was normally Venom’s thoughts that were predisposed to violence. 

 

Eddie slipped deeper into dreaming, but his hands were twitching. He reached for Venom, pulling some of Venom’s body with tired, soft fingers, creating ripples in Venom’s structureless form. 

 

Eddie dreamed about Venom’s face but it peeled back, and there was Flash instead. With his smug little smirk, and then Flash was Dan and then was Flash again, then Patricia, then a college roommate, and it was making Venom’s head spin.

 

Eddie’s forehead creased and his mind conjured up Flash’s hands, now covered by Venom, and they were holding Eddie up in the air. Against a brick wall. And it  _ hurt  _ though it didn’t hurt, just the vague, knowledge of hurting and idea of the sensation, as dreams tended to do. Dream-Flash/Venom’s tongue sagged, and they were grinning, they dropped Eddie and Eddie sank slightly into the dirt, and then they left, walking endlessly away, ever farther but no clearer, Eddie’s fingers outstretched- 

 

Venom didn’t like this. He could tell Eddie didn’t either. 

 

With a single spark to the hook in Eddie’s brain, Venom jolted Eddie awake. 

 

Eddie’s eyes flashed open, his heartbeat raced, the shock of sensation to his whole body had his fingers and toes twitching. “I, it, wh...” he swallowed, staring at the shadows along the bedroom, blinking rapidly. 

 

Venom slid easily out of Eddie’s grasp, shaping form out and around his arms and hands, so his head raised to face Eddie. “Your dream bothered me,” he told him. 

 

Eddie turned over with a groan, glancing at the alarm clock. “Five a.m....  _ jesus. _ ” He rolled over, one hand on his stomach. “Really?”

 

Venom sunk his body down, falling gently until his head was on Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie reached up sluggishly and placed his hand on him. “Pick a better dream,” Venom advised.

 

“S’ not how it works,” Eddie explained softly, eyes closing.

 

‘ _ It’s easy. Just do it.’ _

 

“How’d y’know?” Eddie mumbled. He shuffled his shoulders, rearranging himself more comfortably. 

 

‘ _ Think of pleasant memories. _ ’

 

“M’kay.” Eddie thought about them, curled up on the couch, and then the flowers on the kitchen table, and then he thought about their reunion in the woods and Venom’s tongue in his mouth, and he fell back asleep.

 

This sleep was dreamless, just black shapes moving around and quiet, empty air, and it was much better.

 

* * *

 

 

“I’ll be recording this, if that’s alright,” Eddie said, placing the black recording device down on the table and turning it on. His phone in his pocket had also been recording since he’d come in. He flipped open his notebook, tapping the pen on the blank pace. 

 

“More than alright,” the mayoral candidate said with a smile. He was a balding, skinny white man, with one patch over an eye, and he had a shrewd, sharp look in his eyes that indicated just how dangerous he really was. 

 

Eddie tried not to shudder as another nervous tick from Venom ruffled through his brain.

 

Venom sunk deeper against Eddie’s spine and hip bone, knowing Eddie could feel him as a slight weight in his body but not wanting to raise himself up and spread out. 

 

“To be honest,” the bald man with the eyepatch, Don Fortunato, continued, “we did expect you to come in with a film crew.” The bodyguard to the right of the man’s desk chuckled, though his campaign manager, a very small woman, seemed annoyed. She sat in a chair beside the large stacks of ‘Vote Fortunato - Republican’ posters and her arms were sourly crossed. 

 

“Well...” Eddie said. 

 

There was a long silence after that as everyone seemed to expect Eddie to speak. 

 

“I believe you’re here to discuss our campaign drive,” the campaign manager pressed. 

 

“Yes,” Eddie coughed. “We wanted to discuss your organization’s move from New York City to California, and your relocation to San Francisco. What inspired this sudden change?”

 

“My boys grew up here,” Don Fortunato answered with practiced ease, “and after my youngest’s injury I thought it was about time the Fortunato’s came back home to our roots. This city has always held a special place in our hearts.”

 

“It had nothing to do with the uptick of, I suppose the current nomenclature is ‘superheroes’, in the New York area, or the downfall of your known associate Wilson Fisk?” Eddie pressed. 

 

Fortunato scowled. “Not at all. Fisk was never my associate.”

 

“You were seen together on multiple occasions, some have described the two of you as friendly.”

 

“We were simply both businessmen in the city. I had no idea about Fisk’s underhand dealings and I would never consider the man a friend of mine,” Fortunato said sternly. 

 

“You’ve depicted yourself as a strong family man, with a hard press toward traditional family values,” Eddie said, changing the subject to throw Fortunato off the defensive, “would you care to elaborate on that?”

 

“Absolutely. I don’t believe San Francisco is a hopeless case, there are still good, hard-working Americans here, people who want this country to stay rooted in tradition,” Fortunato said, “my opponents may say there’s no place for a candidate like me here, but that’s a gross miscalculation.”

 

“Some might say being publically anti-gay marriage in a climate like San Francisco is political suicide,” Eddie pressed.

 

“I consider myself  _ pro _ -marriage,” Fortunato quipped.

 

“But only for the right sort of people.”

 

“I wouldn’t use that phrasing.”

 

The campaign manager cut in, “Perhaps we could also discuss our plans to lower taxes and increase the productivity of public transportation?”

 

“By cutting out unions in government jobs,” Fortunato began. 

 

“And thereby lowering the salaries of thousands of city workers,” Eddie interrupted.

 

Fortunato paused. His mouth pressed into a hard line. “I’m running on staunch, well-tested, and vetted Republican values,” he continued, “and the Republicans of San Francisco understand my policies. If you took the time to read them, you would as well.”

 

“I’ve read a lot of things about you,” Eddie assured, in a way that didn’t seem at all assuring, “though do you truly believe in a city that’s nearly 85 percent confirmed Democrat, a Reublican really has a chance? Especially one running with strict, anti-immigration and anti-LGBT rights?”

 

“I do.”

 

“It seems your campaign, while certainly attracting interest to the thirty-seven thousand Republicans of our city of...” Eddie flipped back in his notebook, “eight-hundred seventy-thousand people, it doesn’t seem like a smart investment. As a man with a national corporation, and excessive interest in the stock market, you don’t seem to be the type to make futile business decisions. Do you consider yourself a savvy businessman, Mr. Fortunato?”

 

Don Fortunato took a deep, angry breath. “ _ Yes _ , I do.”

 

“Then why have you spent double the campaign funds of... let’s see...  _ any  _ other candidate on a campaign with such an astronomically small possibility of success?”

 

“I believe in my campaign...”

 

“You have at least seventy workers on staff as interns, who have received large personal cash donations via your campaign office to their gofundme accounts or as personal checks, as gifts to their business and more. One of which was,” Eddie flipped back again, “twenty-thousand dollars for a gofundme to buy roller skates.”

 

“Your information is wrong, Mr. Brock,” Fortunato told him stiffly.

 

“If so, will your office release full, detailed transcripts of all money received from both yourself and other sources, explaining exactly where and how the money has been spent? A show of good faith, if you will.” 

 

“That is unnecessary.”

 

“Do you believe the public has a right to know...”

 

“I believe I’m a busy man, and this interview has to conclude,” Fortunato said, standing up.

 

Eddie raised an eyebrow. “I thought we’d have an hour.”

 

“I’m sure someone on my team will be getting in contact with you,” Fortunato promised, his eyes dark and narrowed like a shark, “to clarify the fake news story you seem to be concocting without any proof. In the meantime, I’m afraid I have  _ real  _ work to get to. Not everyone can make a living off of spewing around baseless accusations.”

 

Eddie picked up the recorder and nodded. “Looking forward to learning more about you, Mr. Fortunato,” he said with a smirk.

 

* * *

 

Eddie pulled the hoodie up over his head and clung his motorcycle jacket closer. It was cold today, and drizzling, but the fish market was still open and Eddie’d long since learned not to leave Venom without something crunchy. Over the past couple months, Eddie’d even grown into something of a regular. 

 

Eddie thrust his hands into his pockets and walked forward.

 

There was a glaring red neon sign through the drizzle, declaring this area a public market, and the wharf was teaming with small shops and the occasional booth. On other days, the area might be flooded with street performers, tourists, and children running around, but on a dreary Tuesday evening in October the only people milling around were locals. Eddie nodded at someone they didn’t know, but had often seen around this part of town, and she gave Eddie a big smile and nodded back. 

 

“Why were you so weird back there?” Eddie asked. He fished through his pockets, looking for the headphones, and stuck one in his ear.

 

‘ _ Weird _ ,’ Venom repeated.

 

Eddie walked to an open restaurant, looking around at the fresh fish. He knew this kind of thing was best if he took his time and examined things, when Venom wanted something he’d let Eddie know. “Alaskan King Crab legs?” Eddie asked, “You liked that last time.”

 

‘ _ No _ .’

 

“They got other crab legs too. What about Snow Crab?”

 

‘ _ I like that fish, I want to eat it. Smells new. _ ’

 

Eddie picked out a tilapia, passing the man at the counter a twenty for the single fish. “Anything else you want to try?” The man wrapped the fish in newspaper, put it in a bag, gave Eddie his change, and then Eddie went off to the next stall. “It’s a good thing we live here since you like seafood so much,” Eddie pointed out, “if we lived in Arizona you’d be shit out of luck.”

 

‘ _ I like to try things _ .’

 

“I mean, duh, if I was on an alien planet I’d be scouring their Netflix. This is your version of streamed television. Weird fish.” Eddie walked past a canned seafood area, not even bothering with it, until they were in another small shop. “Why did that interview make you jittery? You’ve been with me on plenty of interviews before.”

 

‘ _ Jittery?! _ ’

 

“Yep. Nervous. Scared. Hiding out right next to my poor fucking bladder the whole damn time. I didn’t even know I  _ could  _ feel you moving around in my body until I had to pee in front of some discount Fisk,” Eddie mumbled to himself. “Oh, look at this… got us some wild, uncooked Gulf Prawns. What if you get prawns, I’ll take some popcorn, and we watch a funny movie. Like  _ Stepbrothers _ or  _ Monty Python _ .”

 

‘ _ I was not jittery. _ ’

 

Eddie’s eyes flicked up to a slight movement in a security mirror in front of them. Someone in black, hand just in view, staying there and staying still.

 

‘ _ Being followed _ .’

 

“I can see that. Looks like I was right about Fortunato using the campaign front-”

 

‘ _ Boring. _ ’

 

Eddie snorted. “How is that  _ boring _ ? Are you kidding, it could be a huge story-”

 

“Can I help you?” A man in an apron asked.

 

“Oh, yes,” Eddie said, “can I get… five pounds of the Gulf Prawns? And do you have any Pacific Oysters in stock?”

 

“We got Kumamoto,” the man said as he shoveled prawns into a bag.

 

‘ _ What’s the difference? _ ’

 

“Guess I don’t know if that works until I try it. Can I get some?”

 

“Sure. Dinner party size?”

 

“That’s a safe bet.” Eddie shifted slightly as the man in the mirror moved out of sight. “Do you have any specials? Anything on sale? My partner and I are planning a bit of an… adventurous… party.”

 

The man gave them a smirk. “We got octopus.”

 

‘ _ Yes! _ ’

 

Eddie frowned. “How… much for that?”

 

“Thirty-five ninety-seven plus tax. You buy two, I’ll throw in our homemade cocktail sauce.”

 

‘ _ Buy two! _ ’

 

Eddie sighed. He thought for a long time about money, which Venom knew was bullshit. They had more than enough. “Yeah, I mean, why not.”

 

The man went to the back, coming out five minutes later with a much larger bag than before. Eddie paid for it with just a bit of reluctance.

 

‘ _ What else are we getting? _ ’

 

“We have more than enough.”

 

‘ _ You promised if I didn’t get to hunt myself you’d feed me. _ ’

 

“I am,” Eddie said, taking the bags and walking back out the fish market the way they’d come. “You’re an insufferable glutton, you know that?”

 

‘ _ You don’t eat enough! _ ’

 

“Are you…” Eddie paused. There was a man standing by their bike.

 

‘ _ Let’s eat him. _ ’

 

“We don’t even know who that is!” Eddie knew they were in public, he glanced around anyway, making certain there were a few people around. There was a man by the end of the dock, throwing bread into the water, and two young women having a conversation by a Jeep only a few cars away from where they were parked, as well as the worker standing in the nearest stall. So Eddie squared up his shoulders and started to walk forward.

 

Venom surged through Eddie’s legs and held him still.

 

“What’re-”

 

‘ _ I’m not allowed to fight. You’re not allowed to either.’ _

 

“He’s  _ waiting  _ for me, if I don’t… he sees me now. Just… stay down.”

 

‘ _ I don’t think we should-’ _

 

“If…” As Eddie watched, the man by the bike took an object from his hand and ran it over the tires. “Oh… god no,” Eddie said.

 

Venom moved their legs behind a car, hiding them.

 

“Fuck,” Eddie said, leaning over and wincing. “Bastard just slashed my tires.”

 

‘ _ If Venom attacked him-’ _

 

“He’s leaving, stay  _ put _ .”

 

‘ _ It would be very satisfying to cave in his-’ _

 

“Fuck, I’m going to need triple ‘a’ aren’t I?”

 

‘ _ I’ll crush his body. I’ll throw him off the wharf and feed him to the crabs.’ _

 

Eddie pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

 

* * *

 

The tow truck driver dropped them off outside of the apartment, and Eddie gave him a friendly casual wave. Eddie had, at one point, accidentally revealed he had octopus in his groceries, and it turned out the tow truck driver was a ‘calamari connoisseur’. It led to Eddie feeling vaguely out of sorts as the driver chatted away about great, underground seafood restaurants and Eddie was left parroting Venom’s questions.

 

Eddie unlocked the apartment complex door and snorted to himself. “I wonder what that man would say if he knew he’d been talking to an alien.”

 

‘ _ Why would it be different? _ ’

 

“Not a lot of people have talked to an alien,” Eddie pointed out as he walked up the stairs. One of the plastic bags began to rip but Venom grabbed it from the bottom with a tendril, holding it tight. 

 

‘ _ He was talking about octopus and squid, Eddie, my planet of origin had nothing to do with the conversation. _ ’

 

“What? Are you saying  _ I’m  _ prejudiced?”

 

‘ _ What? _ ’

 

Eddie snorted. He reached the door and set the bags down to open his apartment, and at that moment the door behind them opened as well. Their neighbor stumbled out, hair dishevelled, clothing ripped, smelling like weed and hairspray. He had dark, unnatural liner under his eyes, like Venom had seen many human men and women doing, and his bleary eyes blinked several times before they widened in fear.

 

Eddie opened his door and grabbed his bags. “Hi, Ziggy,” he said.

 

Ziggy stepped back into his apartment and slowly closed the door.

 

Eddie walked in the apartment with a sigh, slamming it shut and dropping the delicious food on the table. He was careful to avoid knocking over the flowers. Venom reached out to the food, spilling his body out of Eddie’s shoulder, and started to unwrap it all. Eddie stayed busy, moving farther away, first to the fridge for beer, then turning on the oven, then he even went to the bathroom. That stretched Venom out rather far, but he kept himself thin enough to still be able to reach octopus. 

 

He liked the way the spongy tentacles of the fish spooled out of the newspaper when he unwrapped it. 

 

Eddie opened the bathroom with a bang, taking a large yawn. “Not a fish.”

 

‘ _ What? _ ’

 

“Octopus is a cephalopod.” 

 

‘ _ Ocean creature. Fish.’ _

 

“Trust me, I was jobless for six fucking months, I’ve seen Planet Earth,” Eddie grabbed the bag of raw prawns and set it on the coffee table by the new television. He went to the cabinet, pulled out the box of popcorn, and opened it only to realize it was empty. Eddie sighed. “Damn it.”

 

Venom curiously probed through Eddie’s mind, looking around the higher functions of his temporal lobe, searching among scattered memories for all the little triggers and hidden spaces where Eddie kept meanings of words. It took a long time until he reached what he was looking for, and in that time Eddie had already started to cook a frozen pot pie and was curiously holding a knife over an octopus with a sour expression.

 

Venom grabbed the knife and threw it hard, it hit hilt-first against a wall and fell to the ground with a clatter.

 

“What the fuck?!” 

 

Venom spooled his body out of Eddie’s chest and showed his face, snapping his teeth in the air. “ _ Cephalopod  _ means  _ octopus! _ ”

 

Eddie blinked.

 

“Why,” Venom continued angrily, “have  _ two  _ words mean the  _ same  _ thing?! And then correct  _ me? _ ”

 

“They don’t mean the same thing, love,” Eddie told him.

 

“I looked  _ through  _ your  _ memories-”  _

 

Eddie raised his hands in surrender. “They don’t mean the same thing, but I don’t… actually know the difference.”

 

“So,” Venom said, moving his head closer, “the failure in knowledge is  _ yours _ .”

 

Eddie frowned. “Am I expected to know everything?”

 

“You corrected  _ me _ !”

 

“Because it’s not a fish!” 

 

“ _ Liar _ !”

 

Eddie reached in his pocket and pulled out his phone. “Fine. I’m going to google this,” he said, pointing at the phone with his other hand, “you’re going to be wrong, and you’re going to repay me by eating this raw octopus yourself ‘cause I don’t want to.”

 

Venom’s punishment for a potential wrong statement was delicious food? Eddie was terrible at gambling, Venom decided.

 

He shared the thought with Eddie, which Venom had been sure had been a scathing criticism, until Eddie laughed.

 

* * *

 

Eddie’s fingers brushed the top of Venom’s head, curving over the black, formless membrane, starting at a ridge between his eyes and edging backwards. 

 

Venom found it pleasing, soothing enough, and lay still and quiet, he could feel pinpricks of Eddie’s dream replaying again, a slow march of a journey of a little boy collecting rocks and magazines and hiding them in an abandoned car in the woods. It didn’t mean anything, nothing at all, just the image of a much smaller Eddie Brock, his toes bare and touching grass, his arm banging back and forth as he hit a stick against trees.

 

Venom didn’t pay attention to the dream at all, focusing more on collecting sparks and hooks across Eddie’s body, arranging them, guiding Eddie’s metabolism along to grow healthier and stronger. But then the little boy opened the rusted car door and slid inside, throwing rocks on a rusted out floor, settling himself in the back seat on a musty blanket with cartoon characters decorating, and as the boy spread the magazines down, and began to read, Venom saw a dream version of himself. Inky-black shadows seeped in round shapes across the boy’s fingers as he traced the images on the page, and a shape appeared, a soft head,  _ much  _ rounder than Venom actually looked, in fact, Venom was a bit offended by the interpretation, but the head slid itself under child-Eddie’s chin.

 

The dream didn’t become anything else, it didn’t have time to grow any more, so it stayed as it was as the sleep cycle continued. Small fingers brushing over images that never changed, a comforting black shadow tucked away under a tiny figure, bare feet kicking behind themselves as the light outside grew darker and darker.

 

The alarm surprised the both of them.

 

Venom surged upward out of Eddie’s chest, threw a long tentacle out across the room, slammed a hole into the wall and knocked the dresser and a storage box clean onto its side. Eddie gasped, sat up and looked around, adrenaline pumping in his system.

 

He looked at his phone, playing the Kinks at full volume at six-thirty in the morning, and the trashed bedroom, and sighed. 

 

‘ _ I wasn’t expecting that. _ ’

 

Eddie picked up the phone and shut off the alarm with a sigh. “Me neither. Alright, let’s go.”

 

Eddie did boring thing then, put on clothes that were different and yet exactly the same as what he always wore, used the toilet, brushed his teeth, combed his hair. He popped four toaster strudels in the toaster, then rubbed his eyes for the entirety it took them to cook, and wrapped them in a napkin as he walked downstairs. 

 

Venom didn’t pay attention until after Eddie got his coffee and then stood outside doing nothing.

 

‘ _ What are you doing?’ _ He asked.

 

“Waiting for the bus,” Eddie told him. A woman in business clothes, sitting on the bench by where they stood, glanced at them. Eddie slowly fished through his pockets for his headphones and put one in his ear. “What was with you this morning? Did you fall asleep?”

 

‘ _ No. _ ’

 

“I think you did.”

 

_ ‘I think you did.’ _

 

A bus rounded the corner, stopping in front of them.

 

“I think you’re embarrassed.”

 

‘ _ I am not!’ _

 

“Oh, yes, you are, you’re…” 

 

They both felt the cold object against the nape of Eddie’s skull at the same time. “You’re not getting on the bus, killer,” Flash Thompson told him, “so wave it off, and then you’re going to follow me. Got it?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't like the end of the chapter, like the whole last half, but I needed to kind of push through it to get where I was going? So. It just is.


	4. Inference

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't edit this as much as I should because I wanted to post it before work.

Eddie wasn’t allowing Venom to do anything, the symbiote had to sit, steaming, furious, curled up around Eddie’s intestines, not doing anything as their body was guided away. Eddie projected the order out with every step, be still. Be quiet. Be safe.

 

‘ _No!’_

 

Be still. Be quiet. Be safe.

 

Eddie opened the black car door, Eddie stepped inside, Eddie handed Flash Thompson his cell phone. Venom did nothing.

 

It wasn’t even fair. Venom _knew_ everything about Flash Thompson, and _they_ could easily take Flash down. To be overpowered by a single, solitary human, even one Venom liked, when they were a perfectly bonded pair was _humiliating_.

 

 _No, darling,_ Eddie thought loudly, as the engine to the car started. Eddie’s hands fidgeted in his lap, his eyes glancing to the gun in Flash’s lap that was facing toward them. _Don’t do anything. We have to talk this out, we can’t be exposed._

 

A good symbiote, a strong one, would ignore all of that. Riot would never have stood for this humiliation. They’d take control of their reluctant, fearful host, they’d slam Flash’s face into the windshield, take control of the car, and eat the uppity-ex-host piece by piece by piece. Any other symbiote wouldn’t listen to Eddie.

 

But, like always, that weakness in Venom’s mind made him compliant.

 

“Can I ask where we’re going?” Eddie said. He was concentrating on the road signs, noticing recognizable areas and places. Each time he knew where he was going, a bit of confidence would surge back up in his brain, staving off the fear.

 

Flash looked over for a moment, his mouth sneering, before turning back to the road. He waited a long moment, seemingly thinking.

 

It took Flash a lot longer to think than Eddie. Though Eddie wasn’t the fastest thinking host Venom had ever had.

 

“Life Foundation, beach,” Flash answered.

 

“Why?”

 

“You’re going to help me find him.”

 

“Why would I do that?” Eddie asked.

 

Flash snorted. “You’re looking for him to. You miss him.”

 

“He was killing me. I told you. I have proof,” Eddie reminded. The hairs on his arms and back of his neck stood up as a chill rolled through his body. Venom send calming thoughts, the warm memory of the shower, and Eddie’s shoulders relaxed ever so slightly.

 

“I was following you. I know you met with Don Fortunato,” Flash said. He signaled, then waited at a stop sign, his hand flexing over the gun aimed at Eddie. “You’re tracking the symbiote too. You want to find Venom just like I do.”

 

“What does Fortunato have to do with anything?”

 

The signal turned green and Flash started to move the car again. He was being much more careful driving than Venom ever remembered him being capable of. “You know exactly what. Angelo Fortunato, Don’s son. Don’t play fucking stupid with me, Brock. I _know_ you’re a reporter. I know you want clues. The biggest story of your life, alien monsters playing puppet with humans on Earth, drops into your lap and you expect me to believe that you’ve just decided to slide it under the rug? You’ve never stepped away from an opportunity to put your name in print in your goddamn life, I’ve done my research.”

 

Eddie frowned. There was anger in his stomach, it was distasteful, as well as shame. “It’s called doing my job.”

 

“It’s called being a fucking glory-hound.” Flash’s finger tightened on the gun and Eddie tensed. “But you’re on the right track, and you’re going to tell me everything you know. And I’m going to get Venom back.”

 

Eddie took a deep breath. “What if… Venom doesn’t want to be with you?”

 

Flash scoffed at him and turned back to the road.

 

“I mean it,” Eddie told him, “all of this searching around for this alien symbiote. Maybe Venom is better off without you.”

 

“Look, _Brock_ ,” Flash said Eddie’s name like a curse, “I don’t expect you to understand. I get it, I _really_ do.”

 

“Get what?”

 

“For once in _your_ miserable life, you got to be powerful. You were the big, tough guy, not some sad sack who used to be on local t.v.,” Flash said the words with contempt, his knuckles clenched white over the steering wheel and gun respectively, “you were powerful. You could make shit happen. You could be a hero, you could be like Spider-Man, you could-”

 

“What the hell does Spider-Man have to do with this?” Eddie said, confused, “I don’t give a shit about Spider-Man.”

 

Flash raised the gun suddenly and Eddie flinched. “Shut up!” Flash yelled at him, “You shut the fuck up _now_ and let me _fucking_ talk!”

 

Eddie leaned back as far against the door as he could and raised his hands.

 

Venom bristled inside him, annoyed but also confused.

 

“So you lost the symbiote, ‘cause you fucking forced him to shield you when _you_ fell, and that’s the only goddamn reason Venom didn’t let you fall like Angelo.”

 

Eddie’s heart skipped a beat and flushed, blood sinking low. Venom could see tension, could see red lines and firing synapses flare up in recognition. “Fall?” Eddie repeated quietly.

 

Flash turned the car down the bridge now, the Life Foundation in sight.  “Angelo Fortunato, bought the symbiote after it went underground leaving my facility. Leaving me. Three months of silence and then we get rumors that Venom was involved in the death of a mobster’s son. See, turns out my friend didn’t like getting hooked up to some loser criminal scum, he didn’t like it at all.”

 

“He’s dead?” Eddie asked.

 

“Should be. Broke his back, internal bleeding, he’s entirely brain dead, but his father keeps him on life support anyways. See, Daddy’s still holding out hope he can buy out some mutant cure or magic solution and bring the twerp back to life.” Flash turned them right, down a dirt road toward the river and away from the main area of the Foundation. “Guess even mobsters have a heart,” he said, as if it was an afterthought.

 

“He… Fortunato… fell?”

 

“Venom ditched him. Forty stories in the air. Guy spun around, hit a sign, then the roof of a cafe, only reason he didn’t die instantly, was conscious long enough to scream a lot, begging our friend to come back to him.”

 

A ripple of cold passed through Eddie’s chest, Venom tried to send out soothing feelings but the hook shut itself down. Rejected it. Their pupils dilated, they were breathing faster, there was adrenaline, and it tasted _good_ , but it wasn’t _right_ , Venom liked the taste but _didn’t,_ Eddie was unhappy. Scared.

 

‘ _Nothing to be afraid of,’_ Venom scorned, ‘ _if he goes for the gun I’ll shove it down his mouth._ ’

 

Eddie didn’t seem reassured. Venom didn’t understand. Flash was still talking, something about tracking Venom around, tracing the money-credit-something economical receipts. Eddie understood it flawlessly, but the threat was still there.

 

Venom jumped up into Eddie’s mind, throughout his synapses, to his eyes, just against his skin. He _felt_ , searching. The temperature was fine, pleasing in fact, the car’s heater was on so they weren’t in danger there (human bodies were very susceptible to cold), Eddie had no injuries, in fact, Eddie was healthier than he’d been in months, Venom had made sure of that, he’d kept them strong and chased away pesky viruses and threatening little colds that had attacked at them (Eddie didn’t appreciate that enough, but Venom knew Eddie just didn’t understand it), the car had just rolled to a stop by the beach, he was not afraid of the car hitting traffic. _It didn’t make sense!_ What was Eddie afraid of?! How could Venom stop-

 

The gun.

 

Yes. There was no way out of this now. Eddie was scared, Venom hated it no matter how delicious it tasted, he wasn’t going to let Eddie stay afraid. It didn’t matter the cost.

 

Venom jerked forward, sliding out of Eddie’s pores, over his chest, faster than the humans could blink, he grabbed the gun, enveloping it in his body. With a swift jerk, twisting the weapon in a direction a human wrist didn’t move, Flash let go and the gun was in Venom’s hand. He held it up.

 

The two humans blinked and processed what happened.

 

Eddie’s fear compounded. It sizzled. “V, I said don-!”

 

“You mother _fuck_ -!” Flash yelled.

 

Venom hit Flash in the stomach hard, knocking the man against the door. Flash yelped, but he still tried to move. Venom hit him again. He got up.

 

Flash was always so resilient, one of the reasons he’d been such a good host. But he’d also been a _host_ , so Venom knew how to hit him.

 

“Wait-” Eddie said.

 

Venom surged over their body, covering him, his face over Eddie’s face, protecting him, covered and whole like they _should be_ . Strong, humanoid form, Venom mimicking Eddie’s body, matching it piece by piece, filling out blanks and reading the deep, secret desires to be _large_ and to be _strong_. They had hands now, feet, a face… they were one.

 

It was _so good_ . It was always _so good_.

 

Their tongue sagged, the drool excreted from their mouth was _hot_ and green, it had been too long since they’d done this, so long since Venom had expelled, that the ooze built up in their mouth and dripped freely. Venom smiled, and he could feel Eddie feeling his own happiness, his own excitement, and even in Eddie’s distress he responded, he felt it too. Whole.

 

Their hand snapped forward, grabbed Flash by the jacket, and pushed him through the window and outside. The man flopped down, out of sight, but Venom wasn’t done. He flowed forward, sliding them around the glass, and propelled their body after him.

 

Flash hadn’t had time to move, barely any time to react, before Venom was on top of him. Venom slammed Flash’s back into the ground, holding onto his shirt, and raised his other hand. They spread their fingers wide like a claw as he formed tight, sharp nails on the ends. “Wait!” Venom yelled. No. Eddie. “Eddie? Why?”

 

Flash grabbed feebly at the hand on his chest, his jaw dropping.

 

“What are you doing?!” Venom said, shocked, angry, confused. “I told you not to do this! I told you to stay hidden!”

 

Venom slicked his tongue forward, tilting his head. “We had to.”

 

“We _didn’t_ ,” Venom insisted to themselves, “he wasn’t threatening us.”

 

“He _was,_ ” Venom reminded themselves, “we were _scared_.”

 

“Not of him!”

 

“Yes! Of him!”

 

“I was scared of _you_!” Eddie yelled.

 

Venom froze.

 

It was so bright outside, the sunlight hitting the beach with a fiery fervor. Waves from the ocean hit the sand, spitting out salt into the light breeze, ruins of the Life Foundation’s launch pad were far in the distance, far enough to be blurred, and Flash Thompson struggled vainly beneath their form, not strong enough to push them… to push _Venom_ away.

 

Eddie… Eddie couldn’t… Eddie wanted them to go?

 

“No,” Eddie said, desperately, “I didn’t mean-” Venom slunk backwards, body dissolving under Eddie’s skin, fading. Slinking back deep into Eddie’s stomach… lower maybe… how far down… “Love, please,” Eddie reached out, touching his face, only touching his own skin. He stood, backing up, patting his body, looking for a last hint of black. “I didn’t mean it like that. Don’t go… please… I just…”

 

Venom pushed down, deep, curled up behind Eddie’s ribs, his face against Eddie’s heart, feeling thumping, feeling life, nothing else.

 

“The whole time-” Flash said, sitting up from the beach, grasping at Eddie's now pink hand and pushing it away, “he was with you… you faked-”

 

“Don’t be mad. _Please_ , V, I just-”

 

Venom shut himself off from the hooks in Eddie’s body and everything went silent. There was nothing now. No sight, no smells, no tastes. He could only feel Eddie’s body through his own, he could feel cool bone, the rush of blood against his essence, and a steady beat.

 

Eddie’s thoughts were gone, Eddie’s feelings gone. There was only Venom.

 

It was _extraordinarily_ uncomfortable. To be alone, to have nothing to do, not to be able to _feel_. Bad. Very bad.

 

No, no. Venom reached to activate the hooks- _no_! No.

 

They had to think- _he_ had to think- _Venom_ had to think.

 

Was Eddie unhappy? Eddie couldn’t be. Eddie was _delicious_. Eddie felt so much, felt so good so many times. They were happy. They had to be. But how could they be happy if Eddie feared him?

 

Venom feared… fire. Feared separation. It was the opposite of happy. Not… _good_.

 

It was so much harder to think not being connected to Eddie’s brain!

 

What if… where… couldn’t be scared of him. Teased him. Why would this happen? What had Venom done? He’d been sitting in the car. He’d been hiding. Exactly what Eddie told him to do. Venom hadn’t done a thing to Eddie. He’d been _good_ lately. _Venom_ had been happy.

 

It had made so much _sense_ that Eddie had been afraid of the gun. How could they be wrong? No. Not they. He. It. Symbiote. Venom.

 

Thinking was hard. Eddie had so much more words than the Symbiote could hold. So much stronger… no, not just a symbiote. Eddie liked the name now. Didn’t have to have a name. Didn’t always want a name. Eddie liked them having a name sometimes, the Symbiote liked that Eddie liked the name.

 

The heart beat. It beat a hundred times. Then a thousand.

 

Venom counted each and every one, felt each one. Felt them stutter, felt them vary in pace, the heart going faster and faster, then slowing, then fast again. Blood rushing through it, living through it, and Venom counted and counted.

 

It was so boring. Venom waited until he couldn’t even stand it, until the thinking was too hard to even attempt, until he felt exactly like he always did alone. He felt like _space_.

 

He reached out. Nervous. Softly. He slid his essence up out of Eddie’s heart, through muscles in his throat, past the bone that held Eddie’s strange body together, past a healed crack in the foundation of Eddie’s jaw that had always held a fascination, until it reached one of the hooks, a tiny little presence, indecipherable and unseeable, up the lateral sulcus, into the parietal lobe where it rested. Venom sent a spark.

 

Noise returned.

 

First he heard rushing air out of their left ear. Loud. Piercing. Then small noises picked up, gentle guitar strings, quiet, playing primarily in the right, the left could hear only rushing breeze. He picked up a rumbling mumble then, a quiet sound, deep underneath all the other noises, whispered.

 

“-now fucking symbiote I need you to stop playing coy get out of my ass get up here you fucking I can’t even-”

 

Ah. Eddie.

 

“-if you’d just fucking come up here where are you even I can feel you I can feel this heavy weight in my chest or is it just me I don’t know, love, where are you, I’m sorry, I didn’t-”

 

Venom supposed… well, if Eddie _wanted_ him back, they should come back.

 

Venom sent the sparks, like lightning, hooking and connecting and filling his body out, spreading evenly, coating the muscles and insides of Eddie with his presence, thrumming underneath the edges of his skin.

 

‘ _Eddie_.’ Venom said.

 

Venom barely managed to yank the steering wheel fast enough to stop them from hitting the tree.

 

Eddie, startled, had jerked to the right, shooting the car off of the dirt road. His foot slammed down to the brake, and Venom yanked the wheel back the way they’d come. The car spun, turned, and the back half his the tree with a loud bang. Eddie’s body was wrenched forward harshly but Venom coated him, protected him from the whiplash, cushioned him safe.

 

“Oh god,” Eddie whispered.

 

There were cuts on Eddie’s legs and right arm, Venom felt them just as soon as the car settled with a groan. He reached out, stitching Eddie’s skin together gently, healing each tiny cut and the large bruise on Eddie’s knuckles. He double-checked after, as Eddie slammed his fist against the car door and pulled it open.

 

Eddie stumbled out of the now-wrecked car, his legs shaking though he wasn’t hurt at all. He glanced around the dirt road, the tall, looming trees, and the broken, bent pieces of metal. One tire was at an entirely impractical angle. “Fuck!” Eddie kicked the dirt in front of him uselessly. He stepped around in a circle, and Venom could see his mind whirring, thinking.

 

Eddie stopped in front of a back window, looking at his reflection.

 

Venom sparked along his eyes, sending a casted hallucination in their mind, showing his own face overladen Eddie’s.

 

“Why the hell did you go like that?” Eddie asked, “Why’d you go out- I _explicitly_ -”

 

Their head tilted to the right as Venom was confused.

 

Eddie righted their head, raised an arm that was pale and pink in the sun and black in the reflection. “I’m sorry, I just… oh god, this is… this is bad.”

 

‘ _What happened to Flash?’_ Venom asked, moving the reflection as he spoke but not Eddie’s mouth.

 

A surge of hot shame flooded Eddie’s stomach. “I… fuck… we are bad people, V, I’m a bad… I’m a really bad person. God damn.”

 

‘ _We killed him?’_

 

“No… I… I…” Eddie took a deep, shaking breath. “I remembered what you said about… his legs. I fucking, I punched him, I kicked off one of the prosthesis on his leg and I stole his car. I…” Eddie’s voice was choked. “I fucking stole a disabled veterans leg. _Jesus christ_.”

 

‘ _That’s hilarious._ ’

 

“It is not!” Eddie said, raising their hands above their head. The reflection mimicked it and looked rather silly doing it. “I’m going to fucking _Hell._ If I wasn’t before. I absolutely am.”

 

‘ _Where is Hell?’_

 

“It’s not…” Eddie sighed, dropping their arms, “it’s a place bad people go.”

 

Venom forced them to step forward, hair on their skin standing on end in excitement. ‘ _Why didn’t we go before? We could have had so much to eat there!’_

 

“It’s not real.”

 

‘ _I_ _f it’s not real then you won’t be going there for being bad._ ’

 

“Not that kind of not real- _fuck_ , just… stop talking about Hell, I don’t know how to describe Catholicism to you, I need a second-” Eddie’s breath came in hot and fast. He glanced around, turning in a circle, looking at the long, deserted road behind and ahead of them. “We need to think.”

 

Eddie reached into his back pocket, taking out his wallet. He frowned, noting very loudly in his head, _Thirty-seven dollars_. He pulled out his identification card, then his credit cards. He tossed them to the ground and kicked at them, covering them in dirt. He grabbed the rewards cards next-

 

‘ _No!’_ Venom surged out with a tendril, grabbing the Yogurtplace and Happy Sub cards before they could fall. ‘ _Keep!’_ He put them back in Eddie’s hand.

 

“We need to go on the run.”

 

‘ _Free. Food._ _Keep them, Eddie._ ’

 

Eddie sighed. He brushed his forehead with his fingers. “No.”

 

‘ _Eddie!_ ’

 

“If it wasn’t for you revealing yourself, we wouldn’t be _in_ this mess, Venom! So you’re going to listen to me for _once_ today!”

 

‘ _Chocolate yogurt, Eddie! All the chips we want!’_

 

“Stop being a child!”

 

‘ _A child?!_ ’ Venom felt the association like a brand in his mind. He hated it. ‘ _You’re a child!’_ Venom insisted, rather proud of his refutation.

 

Eddie only rolled his eyes. He dropped the rewards cards anyway, including the precious Yogurtplace card that declared them prime customers, and kicked at it with dirt just to rub it in. “Happy?” Eddie asked. “You had to come out, you just had to reveal yourself, and now look at this fucking mess. You think Agent Thompson’s going to just rest now that he knows you’re out there? The guy’s fucking crazy.”

 

‘ _He’s not crazy. He’s determined._ ’

 

“Oh, _so much better_ ,” Eddie said. He pulled their leather jacket closer around him, even though he wasn’t cold, and frowned at the wrecked car. “Guess we had to ditch this at some point.”

 

‘ _Let’s go home_.’

 

Eddie felt sad. Venom didn’t like it. He pushed out his form along Eddie’s wrist, trickling down to Eddie’s hand, holding it tight the way Eddie liked him to, but it didn’t seem to help. Still, Eddie squeezed back. “We’re going north. Too much going on south of the border, we have a lot of…” Eddie looked over at the reflection, which showed his own face for just an instant before Venom covered his eyes with the image of his own. “We can’t go home.”

 

‘ _I still have an octopus in the fridge._ ’

 

“I know.”

 

‘ _You have to be at work, Eddie.’_

 

“I know.”

 

‘ _If you know, then we should go home.’_

 

“If we go home, Thompson and that entire vague government agency’ll be waiting for us. They’ll separate us.”

 

‘ _No!_ ’ Venom surged up out of Eddie’s chest, facing him, his face forming out of black. With his eyes he could see Eddie’s face from the outside, twisted and pained, his eyes heavy. “No!”

 

“No,” Eddie repeated. “We won’t let that happen.”

 

“We go north, we stay together?”

 

“We go north.”

**Author's Note:**

> i'm hollypunkers on tumblr if you want to send a follow or a message. keep it kind.
> 
> no one did a Seven Evil Exes AU yet so... first.
> 
> if anyone has a better idea for a summary cause that is #bad, i welcome the feedback there.


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